Hold the presses – Oracle is suing Google?
If you’ve never heard about this long-running lawsuit, don’t be chagrined – it’s been fairly low-key, considering that Google views the outcome to be a referendum on the future of software development as a whole. Reports today detail what’s happening in this landmark litigation.
First, the facts: Oracle is suing Google over Google’s use of Oracle copyrights while building the Android smartphone platform, a multibillion-dollar endeavor to rival Apple’s dominant mobile operating system.
Oracle seeks some $8 billion in damages, and may look for even more.
“Oracle will recalculate its damages request if it wins at the Supreme Court and the case is sent back to a lower court, Oracle General Counsel Dorian Daley said in an interview,” writes Jan Wolfe at Reuters. “The compensation request would exceed the roughly $8 billion Oracle previously demanded.”
In 2016, a court ruled in favor of Google, dismissing the case.
In 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed that ruling and opened the can of worms again.
The issue, Oracle says, is Google’s inclusion of the Oracle software code in Android – specifically, code related to Java APIs, which is Oracle’s domain since Oracle bought Sun Microsystems in 2009.
Google claims that the Android process was a fair use in achieving a ‘transformative use’ that makes existing tools work for a new type of platform. Courts differ on whether the project meets the standard of a transformative use.
Experts describe Google’s work as replicating the structure and syntax of Java APIs and then writing its own implementation code.
Google says that only .1 of all of the millions of lines of code are identical to the Java source code.
Google spokespersons liken Google’s practices to using hot keys for command shortcuts in operating systems.
But Oracle still maintains that Google unfairly used its own code, and this lawsuit is grinding on, whether the mainstream of the public is focused on it or not.
“Did Google’s use of Java APIs to build the Android OS amount to “transformative” use, or were they simply stealing at another firm’s expense?” asked Liam Tung at ZDNet, going over some of the salient points of this case last year, pending court decisions.
Based on the power of this lawsuit to fundamentally change the rules on software development, it’s important for tech investors to have some inkling of what’s going on. We’re more likely to hear about big antitrust cases against Google or Facebook, but this very important software case deserves your attention if you have any related technology holdings at all.
